Saturday, July 22, 2017

Polymathicans are voracious readers, often reading more than fifty books per year. Furthermore, because of their high degree of intellectual sophistication, their book selection is well outside of the mainstream. Many appropriate titles are resident on Amazon, but they are buried too deep to find easily and the 'reader reviews' often cannot be trusted. Consequently, a Polymathica Book Club is one of the earliest opportunities for members of the Polymathic Institute's Enterprise Network (PIEN).

Strictly speaking, the bookclub is actually a network of book review newsletters, cross linked through exchanged banner ads. Subscribers to a newsletter can download the book with a single click, and they can choose to store it in their 'cloud library' provided by the book club. The author will receive 75% (5% more than through Amazon), the reviewer 15% and the 'book club' 10% for download, cloud storage and payment processing.

At first, book reviewers will scour the low volume titles on Amazon looking for titles that they feel comfortable recommending. However, over time Institute Members, who write books, will submit their work directly to the book club. Over time, reviewers will either build trust with their readers or not. Some reviewers may attempt a personality based newsletter, covering several genres and relying upon their reputation for good taste, but most will choose a specialty, egs. Archeology, Hard Science Fiction etc.

Reviewers with large mailing lists may earn substantial income while expressing a portion of their specific interpretation of a finely crafted life. Suppose a reviewer explores titles, reading one per week and reviewing one per month. If the title costs $10 and is purchased by 5% of their 500,000 subscribers, they will earn 37,500USD per month from a fraction of their time, doing something that, for the most part, they want to do anyway. This can provide a base income while the Institute Member pursues other activities, such as Microstates or Polymathica TV, that will likely take a longer time to create income.

If we assume that, at maturity, 6,000,000 Polymathicans buy 6 titles per year at an average price of $10, total reviewer income will be 3,000,000 × 1.50USD=4,500,000USD per month. That will support 120 reviewers at the aforementioned 37,500USD per month income. Because this represents an opportunity with high income, few hours, and fast maturation, the slots will likely fill up quickly.

There also needs to be a central project team that will provide shared services to the reviewers. This is the book club, itself. It will build traffic, process payments, download titles, and provide cloud storage. It will retain 10% of the purchase price of which profit will be about 4%. At market maturity, this is 6,000,000 × 6 × 10USD × 10% = 36,000,000USD revenue and 14,400,000USD. At 18X PE, this is a market cap of about 260 million USD. If an initial 1,000,000USD equity crowdfunding is given 20% of the equity, this constitutes a 52X capital appreciation. At 100% per year ROI, market maturity needs to be reached in a little under 5 years. With the Enterprise Network model, this is a reasonable goal.

The central project team can be successfully undertaken with 5 members, with an average equity stake of 16%. This translates to an annual income of 2.4 million USD and will likely require 80% of their productive energies. They will be nearly full time, while reviewers and authors will be only dedicating a portion of their productive energies to this activity.

At market maturity there will be 36,000,000 unit sales. And 120 reviewers will review about 1,440 titles for 25,000 unit sales and author income of 187,500USD. Actually, for both reviewers and authors something like a Pareto function will apply. This means that about 24 reviewers and 288 authors will have high six figure (USD) or even low seven figure income. For these members, the book club will be their primary income source, while, for the remainder, it will be a source of supplemental income.

The Polymathica Book Club will be one of the first workgroups to generate significant revenue and participants should start searching for titles immediately. From the very beginning, the Book Club Project Team should form and start creating a business plan for presentation to crowd funders. The initial crowdfunding will be for about 20,000USD and will be a rewards funding. That will be followed in about six months with a 1,000,000USD equity funding, probably reported in the U.S. with a Regulation D, Rule 504 exemption and similar exemptions where available. It is probably the case that this project team will be created from Founding Members and will not be available for those who come after.

Members interested in publishing a book review newsletter should start searching Amazon and other e-book sellers for appropriate titles. They also should interact with other Work Group Members to start building a list of potential banner exchange newsletters. While the Book Club will create a lot of traffic, the reviewers can start adding subscribers as well. While this will not be very significant, when it is multiplied by 120 reviewers doing the same thing and then exchanging banners, it can be a good initial source of revenue.

Aspiring authors may choose to join the workgroup as well which will give them an opportunity to start building relationships with reviewers.

Lastly, there are download sources of free, out of copyright books, the largest of which is Project Gutenberg. Some workgroup members may choose to create collections that can be downloaded all at once, for a fee. This is a good future opportunity because over time nearly all Polymathicans will want such a library resident on the cloud storage that will be available through the Book Club. It may be marketed through the Book Club or through The Polymath or Polymathica. Most likely the success will come from collections that follow a particular theme, egs. Victorian Novels, Enlightenment Philosophers, etc.

If you want to become involved in this Work Group, you may do so by becoming a Founding Member of the Polymathic Institute. As a Founding Member, your first year membership will grant you lifetime membership. You will be able to join two other work groups. All you need to do is use the form the left column. Be sure to include the e-mail address that you want to use for Institute Membership communications. Once your payment has cleared, we will contact you, via your provided e-mail to find out which Work Groups you wish to join.

Join The Polymathic Enterprise Network

We are searching for 150 founders by year end 2017. By paying for one year Membership in The Polymathic Institute, you will receive lifetime membership. This is an opportunity to build a finely crafted life as a Polymath. To learn more, read the page, Polymathic Institute Founding Members.

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Michael W. Ferguson

Polymath, visionary and change agent

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Experiment.com will be a useful tool in our goal of remediation for Polymaths and the inappropriately excluded. While this site provides a good format for funding independent research, it is not going to provide an adequate supply of funders. However, by utilizing our contacts in Polymathica we can move forward in the Polymathic Institute's goal to promote polymathic research and secondarily, polymathic careers.

Fundable.com for many this will be the best crowdfunding platform for equity offerings. Their charge is $179 per month. Of course, the payment processing fee of 3.2% to 3.7% is extra. Still, a three month, $500,000 offering will only have a total cost of around $18,000 to $20,000 far below the 9% to 10% of most platforms. Of course, like all equity funding sites, you will need to bring most of the investors yourself. That is where P.E.N. comes in.

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Career Advice

You can't earn a living telling people how things are or how they will be. You earn a living by feeding their confirmation bias. That is not a career to which one should aspire.

On Fools

I really have attempted to abide by the apostolic admonition to suffer fools gladly. However, in the end, there were just too many of them.

On Being Human

I was asked, 'In what way does human intellect differ from other animals in kind and not just in degree?' I answered, 'Only humans can ask that question.'

On Opinions

Those who say, 'That's just my opinion' rarely mean it. Those who say, 'That's just your opinion' almost always do.

IQ in Perspective

A guy once quoted to me, 'When a wise man points at a star the fool looks at his finger.'
I replied, 'True. But so does my dog and I love her dearly.
Let's not overly weigh intelligence in our assessments of worth.'

The First Principle of Information Age Political Philosophy

No person should be required to live under a body of laws, programs and policies that they consider to be fundamentally unjust.

How Markets Really Work

Perception is reality...until reality steps in and says, 'OK, enough!!!'

On the Mainstream News

Pitting a Left Wing lunatic against a Right Wing lunatic gets you a whole lot of pyrotechnics but absolutely no useful insights. You can't average them and find yourself in a defensible middle.

Knowing the Future

There has been no time in the last 200 years when the world thirty years hence was generally believable. Therefore, if someone tells you what the world will be like in thirty years and it seems reasonable, history says that they are wrong.

Make a Difference

I am interested in what you have done, what you are doing and what you will do. I am supremely indifferent to what you could do, but won't. Consequently, I don't care very much about your IQ.